It is not what one looks forward to with fondness. I mean, whoever derives pleasure from writing about a national tragedy should have his/her head examined. But write about the latest in the series of tragedies we must. At the risk of having our heads examined, we must ask why innocent men and women should die in the process of looking for gainful employment. Dying to get a job? What a contradiction in terms! One would have expected that the whole purpose of looking for a job is to stay alive and, thereafter lead a purposeful, rewarding and fulfilling life.
However, job hunting has become a hazardous occupation in Nigeria. Young men and women left their homes one morning, hoping to return with job offers later in the day. This was not to be. Close to 12 of them lost their life in the stampede for Nigerian Immigration Service jobs in Abuja. Minna and Port Harcourt also reported cases of job seekers trampled to death. The majority that survived the job hunting disaster not only remained jobless but were left with traumas which aren’t likely to heal anytime soon. A few were promised “automatic” employment. That raises a different set of questions, among which are who had to be sacrificed to propitiate our economy’s evil spirit and why. It is also alarming that the government tried to milk the disaster for political gain. According to news reports, a few slots of the “automatic” jobs were reserved for women. When we should be ruminating on the immediate and long-term solutions to our country’s employment crisis, the government, with an eye on 2015, is setting aside jobs for a few members of an electoral bloc. That is of course by the way.
I knew we were sitting on a ticking time-bomb, but I did not realize that the employment crisis is that g